Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

mleverything.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 150 posts

Re: Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

#51

Post by madengr »

Lammy wrote: post #26
ineiti wrote: post #13

In Switzerland there was a vote 2 weeks ago about whether we want to support a law to reduce CO2 output by our population. The law was very clear how the money would be spent: improve heating, direct pay to poor citizens, and many others. Cost: - 50 cents per gallon of gas (our gas is about 6$ per gallon) - 20$ to 100$ for a plane ticket The law was refused by 51% of Swiss citizen. What really killed me was that the…

> What really killed me was that the youngest part of the population, the ones who will be the most impacted by the climate crisis, voted the strongest against it. Switzerland being one of the richest countries, I cannot understand how an increase of 10% on luxury items (plane tickets) can have this impact. Young people by definition have had the least opportunity to accumulate any wealth. Why is it surprising that p…

Young people HAVE the most opportunity to accumulate wealth.

Who will have more wealth at 70 when investing in an S&P 500 index fund? A 10 YO investing $10/month or a 50 YO investing $50/month?

The 10 YO will have twice as much wealth while only investing half as much.

Re: Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

#52

Post by tylerhou »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #42
ineiti wrote: post #13

In Switzerland there was a vote 2 weeks ago about whether we want to support a law to reduce CO2 output by our population. The law was very clear how the money would be spent: improve heating, direct pay to poor citizens, and many others. Cost: - 50 cents per gallon of gas (our gas is about 6$ per gallon) - 20$ to 100$ for a plane ticket The law was refused by 51% of Swiss citizen. What really killed me was that the…

What does direct pay to poor citizens have to do with climate change? I've always been told that the best way to do a pigovian tax is to make it revenue neutral. You collect the sin tax, but then your redistribute it based on the average level of tax collected. So someone who uses exactly the average amount of carbon sees no change in buying power. Someone who uses less than average actually sees an increase in buyin…

Evenly distributing the revenue assumes the effect of the negative externality (climate change) is evenly distributed. But climate change tends to harm poorer people more than richer people, so it makes sense to distribute more revenue to them.

Re: Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

#53

Post by jessaustin »

bko wrote: post #7
Lammy wrote: post #2

What a shitty post. I guess I don't believe in climate change after all unless I also believe in public losses for privatized gains. Corporations raked in billions while wrecking the environment and I'm sure they all love framing this as an individual responsibility that we're all "failing" to do.

> In February 2019, the center-right American Action Forum, estimated that the plan could cost between $51–$93 trillion over the next decade [0] Take the low estimate of $51 trillion over a decade so $5 trillion per year. > The top 1% of Americans have a combined net worth of $34.2 trillion, according to Federal Reserve data last updated Oct. 19, 2020 So if you seize all the wealth of the top 1% you'll pay for ~7 yea…

So if you seize all the wealth of the top 1% you'll pay for ~7 years of something that no one claims will actually solve climate change.

Maybe we could buy some healthcare or bike paths or something. The important thing is seizing the wealth of the 1%.

Re: Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

#54

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

tylerhou wrote: post #52
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does direct pay to poor citizens have to do with climate change? I've always been told that the best way to do a pigovian tax is to make it revenue neutral. You collect the sin tax, but then your redistribute it based on the average level of tax collected. So someone who uses exactly the average amount of carbon sees no change in buying power. Someone who uses less than average actually sees an increase in buyin…

Evenly distributing the revenue assumes the effect of the negative externality (climate change) is evenly distributed. But climate change tends to harm poorer people more than richer people, so it makes sense to distribute more revenue to them.

Distributing the revenue is not about compensating for harms. It's about ensuring that you don't have a net impact on people who are using the typical amount of energy. The idea is that the tax captures the externalized costs of economic actions, like emitting carbon. Once the cost of the actions is fully priced in, it is reasoned, consumption will decrease to the optimal level given the harm done by consumption.

The biggest problem with this idea is that we don't really know what the costs are going to be.

In practice, poor people would be beneficiaries of a externality-capturing tax, because by and large, rich people use a lot more carbon. More flights, bigger cars, bigger houses, etc.

Re: Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

#55

Post by bko »

tylerhou wrote: post #52
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does direct pay to poor citizens have to do with climate change? I've always been told that the best way to do a pigovian tax is to make it revenue neutral. You collect the sin tax, but then your redistribute it based on the average level of tax collected. So someone who uses exactly the average amount of carbon sees no change in buying power. Someone who uses less than average actually sees an increase in buyin…

Evenly distributing the revenue assumes the effect of the negative externality (climate change) is evenly distributed. But climate change tends to harm poorer people more than richer people, so it makes sense to distribute more revenue to them.

So its not about preventing climate change, just mitigating its effects.

Re: Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

#56

Post by rhacker »

The government isn't willing to stop climate change either. I REALLY want to do a large solar panel setup at my house, but it looks like there's no way around paying through the anus for the ground mount "system" instead of buying 2" pipe with concrete set in the ground every 8 feet. Because then I would be inventing it myself.

Yet if I want PG&E there is NO FUCKING PERMIT and you just do it. Explosive results.

Re: Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

#57

Post by anoncake »

TiberiusC wrote: post #16

This is why economic growth is key to climate change. As disposable income grows for the median household, adoption for socially acceptable goods will increase. When you increase taxes and regulations everywhere, you decrease the ability to adopt pro-climate consumerism.

No, that just increases people's desire for material goods even more. There is no fixed level of material wealth people expect.

Re: Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

#58

Post by jbluepolarbear »

One of example: my electric company offers green energy at about $0.15 more per unit than non green energy. If that was it I and many people would go green, but if you read the fine print that is a variable rate and could be much higher in high demand. That green power isn’t worth the real potential of a thousand dollar electric bill.

Re: Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

#59

Post by xyzzyz »

hairofadog wrote: post #31
jmann99999 wrote: post #8

The problem with this post is that it cites a survey of how much Americans are willing to pay to "stop climate change." According to the article 57% are willing to pay $1 a month to "stop climate change" and 23% would pay $40 a month. As an American, in a well paying IT job, I'd pay $100 IF IT WOULD STOP CLIMATE CHANGE. However, I don't believe the $1, or $40, or $100 is going to do anything. It's far more complex th…

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I'm very worried about climate change, and I would be willing to make any number of sacrifices to _effectively_ combat climate change. However, the question is this: > _Suppose a proposal was on the ballot next year to add a monthly fee to consumers’ monthly electricity bill to combat climate change. If this proposal passes, it would cost your household $10 every month. Would you vote…

> Would I vote for legislation that would redirect subsidies from fossil fuels to clean energy sources?

FWIW, there are actually fewer "subsidies" to fossil fuels that could actually be redirected than most people here think. When you read HN articles and comments on the "fossil fuel subsidies", in my experience the bulk of these is "fossil fuel has this and that externality, and users of fossil fuels don't have to pay for it, so we count it as a subsidy". Whether you agree that this actually counts as subsidy or not, it's not like you can redirect it.

Re: Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

#60

Post by anoncake »

debacle wrote: post #20

> the group most likely to be willing to pay $40 a month are those making less than $10,000 (5.6% of population, 55.32% oppose). This points more to the weakness of the study than anything else.

Not necessarily, poor people are actually known to be surprisingly generous.
Post reply on HN